El Mañana
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: She's only just been engaged, and she's already looking for ways to escape her marriage. / Katara just wants to forget. Aang doesn't understand. And Zuko is caught in the middle. Anti-Kataang, Zutara friendship, implied June/Katara.
1. el manana

_el mañana_  
it's the dawn, you'll see

The party is roaring in the room behind her, and she's hiding out here like a child in trouble with her parents. She's found a neat little enclave in the alleyway that hides her from the view of anyone who isn't standing in the direct right position where next-door's lanterns shine on her - a small enough space, she figures, and pulls her knees tighter to her chest.

If asked, even under pain of death or dismemberment, she doesn't think she could explain why she's here.

This party is for her, after all.

But everything she eats turns to ash in her mouth, and every smile feels horribly fake, and she thinks that if she has to thank _one more _person telling her how _wonderful _it is that she's going to marry the Avatar, she's going to scream, and possibly kill someone. It all feels so _wrong_, somehow, like this is all a huge mistake that she can't fix.

She shouldn't feel this way. Eighteen and newly engaged - to the Avatar! - and with enough stories of valor to last her ten lifetimes... she should be happy, ready to settle down, ready to pop out a few airbenders and retire to a life of mundane simplicity, in the Southern Air Temple. Ready to never amount to anything more than one of the millions of war veterans, the has-beens, the ones whose glory days are behind her. Ready to be another woman with too many kids, her life assimilated into that of her husband and children.

It makes her sick to think about. And it's... it might not be an accurate picture of her future. Teaching a new generation of airbenders and restoring a race that's been extinct for a century doesn't _sound _boring, until she looks a little deeper, and realizes that what it really means is that she'll be the cook and the mother of the whole temple, while Aang teaches airbending and air nomad philosophy, smiling - just like she has been all night - and serving dinner to a bunch of children who won't call her "Mom" (because nomads have no real families, as Aang explained to her, and are raised by the tribe as a whole). But it might be more interesting than that. She could be a diplomat, she thinks, to the other nations.

And then it occurs to her just how _pathetic_ that thought is - she's only just been engaged, and she's already plotting ways to escape her marriage.

"So what are you doing out here?" a voice drawls, and she jumps. The dark bounty hunter with too much makeup raises an eyebrow and sits down next to her. "Isn't that party in there for you?"

"Yes," she replies, and curses her voice for its weakness. June peers at her through the half-light and draws a flask out from her belt, taking a deep swig and handing it to her. For a moment, she considers not taking the drink, but then thinks that - _damn _it - she could use this. The alcohol is strong and bitter, and burns its way down her throat like a tongue of flame. She coughs and blinks hard a few times before taking another swig.

"That bad, huh?" June asks, not asking for her alcohol back. "I thought you looked a little pained in there. Not too enthusiastic about marrying tattoo-boy?"

"It's just... I mean..." she splutters a few times, before sighing heavily. "No," she admits, handing the flask back to June, "not really."

"So why'd you agree to it?"

"I..." she says, and leans back against the wall. The drink is settling heavy in her stomach, already warming her blood and just beginning to give her a very light buzz that is entirely unpleasant. It's muddying up her thoughts and loosening her tongue, and she's deeply tempted to have more. It won't make things better, but it will make her forget, and hopefully by morning, this nasty mood will have passed her right on by. "He's the Avatar, isn't he?" she continues, taking the flask again without letting June have another drink. "I don't have a choice."

The words are agonizingly true - she's never really had a choice in the matter. Aang is in love with her; as far as anyone is concerned, that means that they are _meant to be_, because the Avatar and the Lover are well-known parts that have been played by thousands of people all through history. Roku and Ta Min, Kuruk and Ummi, Kyoshi and... someone. It's always been assumed that Katara would be in love with Aang the way he is with her - even she assumed it would happen, that she would just wake up one day and _bam!_ be in love with him.

But that hadn't happened, and it was looking more and more unlikely that it ever would. June, half-forgotten beside her, snorts and pulls out another flask, apparently resigning herself to the fact that Katara is going to finish the first one. "You've always got a choice."

"Not really," she replies thickly, already planning to blame drunkenness for the tears pricking at her eyes (and, she muses, everything else about this conversation). No, she hasn't been drinking long enough to be drunk, but if there's anything she's learned from Mai, it's that one should not allow things like truth to get in the way of preserving one's dignity. "I mean, it's _Aang_. He's been in love with me since he met me. He... He saved the world for me."

"And, so you're, what, his prize?"

The next swig she takes is the largest one yet, and between it and the tears she's fighting desperately to control, her throat is raw. "I love him," she chokes, "I do. He's my best friend, and... And I'm happy to be marrying him." The lie falls flat even to her own ears, and June is clearly not convinced.

"Sure you are. That's why you're hiding away from your own engagement party, crying into a flask of _really strong _whiskey. It's because your _happiness_ is just overwhelming you, isn't it?"

She gives up all pretense, letting out a breath she barely even knew she was holding, and begins to cry outright. "I... I'm _stuck_," she whispers, shaking and sniffling and feeling just about as disgusting as she can ever remember feeling - and that includes that incident with the Drill. "If I break off the relationship, everyone will _hate _me, but if I marry him, I'll end up hating myself, and probably him, too." Thinking about the Drill reminds her of the days before Sozin's Comet, and all the _fun_ they had then, running around the world and getting into crazy situations. Sure, the war was terrible, and she'll be the first to cry that peace is glorious, but there are some things she misses.

"It's already starting," she says, miserably, and drains the rest of the flask. June pries it out of her hands and replaces it with the other, merely watching her hysterics emotionlessly. "I... We had so much fun back then, you know?" she breathes, and glances at June, smiling slightly. "We got into all sorts of messes, and everything was simple. We were all just good friends having a blast and saving the world while we were at it. Now..." she trails off and examines the flask in her hands. It looks too expensive for June to own, and Katara thinks that it must have been a gift from some nobleman - whether he knew he was giving the gift, however, is up for debate.

"Now?" June prompts, the same blank look on her face.

"Now all he talks about is restoring the air nomads. And rebuilding the air temples. It's like I'm an accessory," she says, thinking of it like that for the first time. "I'm just his..."

"His prize," June finishes for her. Despair crosses over Katara's face. "You're the trophy he won for defeating the Fire Lord, and now he's placing you up on his mantle. Sounds like a healthy relationship to me," she adds darkly, snatching the flask back from Katara and drinking from it. There's something more underneath June's careless facade - and she thinks she might have a clue what it is.

"Were you ever in love?" she asks, and her voice startles her with the slurring creeping into it. Her head feels heavy. She just wants to forget about this.

June barks out a laugh and takes another draught. "No, but someone was in love with me once," she says, like that's the end of it.

"Let me guess," Katara whispers. "He and everyone else thought he deserved your love, and that you were a terrible person for denying him?"

"Something like that," June mutters, and then looks at her flask. "You know what I think?" she asks, glancing at Katara, "I think we need more alcohol." Katara nods.

"_Strong _alcohol," she clarifies, and June laughs.

"Of course. I don't play light when it comes to drinking. C'mon, let's leave this depressing alley behind."

* * *

It's Zuko who finds her, three hours later, in a deep, drunken discussion about the nature of love and _nice guys _and emotional manipulation with June the Bounty Hunter, of all people, her face stained with tears and alcohol and what might be lipstick (although he doesn't, and never will, ask).

"_There_ you are," he says, coming over to their table, annoyed beyond all reckoning. "Everyone's been looking for you. Sokka's about to have a panic attack."

"Suki didn't go into labor, did she?" she slurs, barely glancing up. Zuko blinks.

"She's only four months pregnant, Katara... Are you drunk?"

"Are we drunk?" June repeats, her tone sarcastic, and then laughs. "Tell me, firecrotch, do we _look _drunk?"

"Yes," he says sardonically, crossing his arms. "Yes, you do. You look very drunk."

"Then we are very drunk," June answers him, and then taps her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I've been drunker, but your friend here doesn't seem like she's too good with alcohol. You might want to watch her," she adds, with a twinkle in her eye. "Make sure she doesn't end up with _too _nasty a hangover."

"Katara..." Zuko groans, and then leans over to help her to her feet. Katara, however, is having none of it.

"Go 'way. I wan' another shot."

"If you'd wanted alcohol, why didn't you drink at the party?" Zuko asks, finally giving up and sitting down next to her, figuring that she's already nine sheets to the wind, so maybe more alcohol will make her pass out, which will make things exponentially easier for him.

"'Cause I didn' want to," she replies bluntly.

"June?"

June waves a hand and orders another round for the whole table, taking Zuko's shot when it arrives. "Aang is at the party. Way I hear it, he doesn't exactly approve."

"Of anything," Katara slurs. He glances at her, and then takes a deep breath.

"This isn't going to end well, is it?"

"Depends on your definition of well," June says, her usually immaculate appearance now rather mussed and - Zuko notices, with both horror and what he _swears _isn't excitement - her lipstick, the same color as the stains on Katara's face, is smudged. "See, I think that the worst possible ending for this is for her to go right back to Avatar Goody-Goody and pretend nothing happened."

"...What happened?"

"She got drunk, stupid," June tells him, although she does seem amused. "And spent the whole night complaining about how she doesn't want to marry him."

"Not the whole night," Katara peeps, her voice slightly distant and drowsy. "We also talked about that guy who wanted to marry you."

"Which turned into more complaining about Aang."

"Let me get this straight," Zuko says, running a hand through his hair and contemplating just going outside to find the others and claim that he didn't see anything and that no one in this bar had seen Katara. "Aang proposed to you," he continues, indicating to Katara, "and you accepted, even though you don't really want to marry him. And instead of talking to him about it or doing anything constructive, you decided to get drunk with a bounty hunter and not tell anyone where you were going?"

"That's pretty much the gist of it," June confirms, but Katara scowls.

"You're one to talk about const - constru - bad ideas," she counters drunkenly, as though it's becoming a hassle to speak. He figures that she's got about ten, maybe fifteen, more minutes before she passes out. And he has a nasty feeling that he's going to be the one taking care of her, because Aang will be furious that she skipped out on _their _engagement party to get plastered, Sokka will be too busy with Suki's pregnancy, and Toph will probably just laugh at the whole thing.

Or maybe not, he thinks, glancing at Katara's miserable face. Maybe not even Toph would find this funny.

"Okay, I'm not," he says gently. "But this isn't going to make anything better."

"Speak f'yourself," she mumbles. "Hopef'lly, I'm not gonna remember a _thing _from tonight, and that's 'xactly what I want."

"Healthy relationship," June quips, "isn't it? I keep telling her to end it now, before she's old, has seventeen kids, and hates everything. I've seen that happen before, and it's not pretty."

Katara makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and a laugh, and Zuko's chest hurts. She just looks so _sad_, so _defeated_... It isn't right, Katara looking like this. She's always been the hopeful one, the optimist - it's wrong on every level, the way she's slumped over a half-finished glass of something alcoholic, like the weight of ten miserable lifetimes is resting on her shoulders.

He wants to be angry with June for getting her drunk, but he can't find it in him to - after all, June is trying to help, the best way she knows how, and the advice she's giving is pragmatic, and mostly sound. He takes issue with the method, but then again, he remembers the period immediately following his banishment and how well acquainted he got with the bottle (and, subsequently, alcohol poisoning) before his Uncle had sharply explained to him that this wasn't going to solve anything except destroying his liver.

Sometimes, he thinks, maybe people need to self-destruct. Angi knows he's the king of doing just that.

"Come on, Katara," he says in a low voice, arm around her shoulders, "let's get you back to bed, all right? And we'll deal with everything in the morning. Or, well," he adds, noting her heavy posture and half-closed eyes, "the afternoon. June, here," he says, and pulls out a handful of coins, "that should pay for her drinks."

"Thank you, Fire Lord Grumpy," June replies, her voice slightly slurred, and swipes the coins over to her side of the table. "And, Katara? Listen to what I told you, all right?"

Katara manages to nod, and by the time they reach the door, is barely even walking, most of her weight on Zuko's shoulder. Finally, he gives up all pretense and picks her up, carrying her over to a bench and letting her sit down. She slumps over, groans, and then throws up, narrowly missing his feet, before coughing twice and passing out. "Dammit, Katara," he sighs, and looks around.

He doesn't dare leave her here - a young, unconscious woman on the streets of Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring in the middle of the night? Not happening. On the other hand, she and June went _well _out of their way to find a bar to drink at (presumably so they wouldn't be disturbed by anyone Katara knew), and everyone is back at the Jasmine Dragon, no doubt worried sick. He's reasonably confident in his arm strength, but he is not so cocky as to assume that he can carry her all the way back there, even with the streets being empty as they were.

That leaves two options: convincing June to run back to the Jasmine Dragon with information as to their whereabouts, or sitting here with her until she wakes up or someone finds them, whichever comes first. And considering that June is not much more sober than Katara, he figures that he'll just have to get comfortable.

* * *

She wakes up far too early, horribly uncomfortable, and with the awful knowledge that she is about to vomit. She opens her eyes, and barely even registers that she's outside and that her head is in someone's lap before she rolls over as much as she can and begins throwing up. Her pillow cries out and recoils, which only causes her head to swim worse and brings her attention to the fact that her brain is apparently attempting to evacuate her skull.

"Ugh..." she groans, and her pillow makes an odd sound.

"Morning," it croaks. She rolls over and blinks, trying to focus on him in the glaring mid-morning light.

"Zuko? What are... Where am I?" she asks, but then it begins to come back to her - the alley, June, the bar, the stories, the crying... "Oh," she whimpers, and brings up a startlingly heavy arm to block out the sun. "Is this a hangover?"

"Either that or you're still drunk," Zuko replies dryly. "Come on. We've got to get back to the others. They're probably about to call in the Dai Li to find you."

"Why did I sleep on a bench?"

"You passed out," he tells her, helping her to her feet and gingerly avoiding the mess she's made all over the ground. "I couldn't get you back to the Jasmine Dragon, and I wasn't about to leave you here alone."

"Thanks," she mumbles, and staggers. Zuko reaches out to steady her and pulls an arm over his shoulders to help her walk. "I feel awful." And, she realizes, judging from the way her lips are cracked, and the way she can feel her hair sticking out in at least two more directions than was normal, and from the general grimy feeling all over, she probably _looks _awful, too. "Can we get to a restroom or something so I can clean up?"

He hesitates, and then glances at her. "Sure," he says, confirming her suspicions. He helps her into a shop that's just getting into its breakfast rush, and winces as the patrons all snicker at her. She has half a mind to waterbend them all into next week, but then again, she's fairly sure that if she tries to waterbend right now, she might _actually_ die.

"Looking for a restroom?" the hostess asks delicately.

"Yeah," Katara answers, and the woman points them in the right direction. Zuko promises to wait for her outside the restroom, and she stumbles inside. A little girl at the sink stares at her with huge eyes, and when she looks in the mirror, she can see why.

_Awful _is an understatement. Her hair is greasy, matted with... gross, messy from sleeping on a park bench and in Zuko's lap, and smells. Her face is streaked with old tears, lipstick (the exact shade that June was wearing, she realizes, with absolute horror), along with dried vomit, is smeared around her lips, her right cheek is red from where she was laying on it, and her eyes are bleary and puffy. Her clothes are rumpled, stained, and even torn in a couple of places.

Shame begins to sneak under her skin - and a very sharp memory of Zuko's voice, understanding but admonishing, _this isn't going to make anything better_. He's right, but then, she knew that before she took the first sip. She just chose to ignore it, just for now, just for one night. So she tells herself that she won't feel ashamed for this, even though she really kind of is. She gives a half-hearted smile to the little girl who's watching Katara like she's about to attack her and gobble her up right here, but is too exhausted to care that she's officially moved into the "scaring little children" stage of hangovers.

The little restaurant has stocked several dishtowels to use for washing, and while they aren't exactly high-quality, they're sufficient. She washes her face (scrubbing a little harder than necessary), until it's pink. She can't scrub the haggard, puffy look around her eyes away, but it's good enough. The hair... is a nightmare, but one she tries to tame with soap, and only sort of fails at. At the very least, she no longer smells like a trash heap, so there's that.

The splitting headache, nausea, and vertigo are more reluctant to go away, but it'll have to suffice for now. She returns to the dining room and rejoins Zuko, who smiles tightly.

"Feel better?"

"Sort of," she replies honestly. He sighs, and helps her walk, a power which is only slowly returning to her. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, once they're back on the street, "for getting you mixed up in this."

He shrugs. "Don't worry about it. What are friends for?"

"Bailing you out of horrible, self-inflicted situations?" she offers, and he smirks.

"Of course," he says, and then gets serious. "Don't worry about it, though, honestly. I've been there."

"You have?"

He nods, "Yeah, and I was on a ship, too."

"Ugh," she groans, "I don't even want to imagine that."

"A steel ship," he continues, trying to lighten the mood, "and Uncle thought it was a suitable punishment to bribe the kitchen staff into waking me up by banging on all the walls with their pots and pans." Katara winces. "Yeah. Not fun."

She laughs, but it comes out weak. "Still," she mutters, "I'm sorry. For what it's worth."

"It's still all right," he replies, with as much warmth as he can. They walk (stagger) in silence for a moment, before he takes a deep breath. "What are you going to do about it?" he asks in a low voice.

"I don't know," she whispers, and then looks at him. "Can I just... _not_? I mean," she cuts in, before he can say anything, "I will, but not now. I just... Not now," she repeats, and leans heavily onto his shoulder. "I don't think I can do this right now."

"Whatever makes you happy," he replies neutrally.

"I'm beginning to think that's an unrealistic goal," she says, so quietly that he can barely hear it. It hurts to say, to think - but the world won't be on her side if she breaks off her engagement to Aang. They'll hate her if she does; she'll hate herself if she doesn't. And right now, her head and throat hurt too badly and she thinks she might still throw up and she still feels too unclean, inside and out, to think about it or make any kind of decision.

"I don't," he says evenly, and his fingers tighten around her waist ever-so-slightly. "Besides, you're supposed to be the hopeful one, aren't you?"

"Come back when I'm sober," she mutters.

* * *

A/N: This is the baby of a plot bunny that's been bugging me for weeks to write. I decided to try and sate it by writing a one-shot, but it remains to be seen if it's satisfied.


	2. la noche

_la noche_  
maybe in time, you'll want to be mine

Aang sits at the bar, glaring into his ice water as though all of the answers will flow up from it and spell themselves out in front of him. Why did Katara blow off the engagement party - and to get drunk with June, no less? What did he do wrong? What wasn't she telling him? He had thought she told him everything (he certainly told _her_ everything) and he had been under the impression that she was happy to marry him; she had even cried when he'd proposed.

So what had bothered her so much last night that she had gotten so drunk she couldn't even make it back to the Jasmine Dragon, and even in the morning had to be dragged in by Zuko?

"Hello, Avatar," a warm, female voice says, and he glances over to see Lady Ursa, gliding into a seat beside him. "You seem troubled."

He shoots her a _you're kidding_ look, and then sighs, "Yeah. It's about Katara."

"Oh?" Ursa prompts, and he almost wants to cry. There's no way she doesn't know - it was her son who'd dragged _his_ fiancee back after she'd been missing for almost twelve hours, after all - but she's pretending not to, for whatever reason.

"You already know."

"I do," she says simply, and then leans on the bar, "but I think it would help you to talk about it."

He's shaking when he turns back to his water, and - partly to clear his head, partly to stall for time - he begins making the ice dance around the glass. Ursa waits patiently for him to respond, and he finally has to face the fact that she won't leave until he does. "I thought she was happy," he whispers. "Now I don't know."

"Because she chose to drink herself into oblivion last night?"

"Yeah," he replies, and slumps against the stool. "I mean, I did _everything_ for her, you know? I... She said she was happy! I don't understand. Why would she go off and get drunk with a bounty hunter rather than stay at her own engagement party? What did I do?"

"Did she seem happy?" Ursa asks evenly, watching Aang's ice continue in their frenetic dance. As his frustration grows, the tempo speeds up, until the ice are clattering against each other, more like a battle than a dance. "Aang?" They suddenly clatter to the bar.

"She said she was happy," he mutters.

"That doesn't always mean as much as it should."

"Why wouldn't she be happy?" he cries, agitated and unhappy. "I gave her everything she ever asked for. I - I - I saved the world for her! Everything I've done in the past four years has been for her!"

"And why does that mean she should be happy with you?"

The question takes him so utterly off-guard that he almost falls off the stool. He had never asked that question before. Katara had always _said _she was grateful for what he'd done, so why should he? "I don't... Why shouldn't she?" he counters lamely.

"Ah," Ursa says simply, "I think I see the problem."

"What?" Aang asks. "You think she's not in love with me? Then why did she agree to marry me?"

"Did you ever give her the choice?"

"Of course I did!" he shouts, offended, even as a little voice in the back of his head - the one that always sounds a bit like Toph - whispers _but did you really?_ And then he thinks about it: he never asked her out on a date, he never asked her if she loved him, or if she wanted to be with him. He, like everyone else, had just sort of assumed that it was a given - after all, she kissed him after Zuko's coronation, and wasn't that a good enough answer? But maybe, he thinks now, maybe it wasn't. "She knows how much I love her," he whispers, as though it's a response.

"Which doesn't obligate her to love you, I'm afraid." At the look of despair on Aang's face, she continues. "Let me elaborate. Ozai, Agni rest his soul, loved me from the moment he saw me. He once promised that he would give me the Earth King's head on a golden plate, if it was what I wished for. But I," she says, and sighs, "I couldn't love him. Even before..." she begins, but trails off, and restarts in another vein. "You see the problem?"

"You're comparing me to Ozai?" Aang says, both horrified and more than a little angry.

"No," she replies firmly. "But I am comparing your _situation_ to his. It isn't Katara's fault if she doesn't love you, no matter what you may have given her. Please," she adds, her voice taking on a strangely dangerous tone, "don't blame her as he did me."

He suddenly wishes that the ground would open up and swallow him whole - which, strictly speaking, is totally possible, but he feels like it would be in bad taste to drop into a tunnel in the middle of a bar while sitting next to Lady Ursa. He just doesn't want to have this conversation. "I..." he begins, "I can't just let her go..."

"Then you don't love her," Ursa replies, her tone distant. Aang jerks his head up and glares.

"How dare you say that," he hisses, angrier than he can remember being any time recently. "Of course I love her."

"No," she answers calmly, "you don't. If you are unable to let her go, then you don't understand what love _is_." He stares at her blankly until she takes a deep breath and goes on. "Aang... Let me explain. My mother once told me that the highest spirits - Agni, Tui, La, others of the sort - envy humanity. Do you know why?"

"No."

"Because we die," she tells him. He's about to voice his confusion when she holds up a hand. "Everything is beautiful to the damned - that's what she used to say. We appreciate life because we know we will lose it. Do you understand?"

"The spirits envy us because we can appreciate life, but they can't," he confirms, and then scowls. "But what does this have to do with me and Katara?"

"Patience," she murmurs. "The spirits, however, will live for eternity. Everything they see becomes a blur, the lives they encounter pass them in the blink of an eye - they can't see the majesty of a sunset or the beauty of the moon upon the ocean because they have seen millions of sunsets and they watch the moon every night. They are immune to the mortal's pain, and by extension, the mortal's pleasure."

"I still don't - "

"Love," she says sharply, interrupting him, and he suddenly feels like a small child being reprimanded, "is similar. One may only appreciate love if they can lose it. That's what... That's what love _is_, Avatar," she adds, tacking on the title to impress upon him the weight of this conversation. "It's knowing that another person has the power to break you - and the trust that that person _won't_. But if you never allow them the freedom to hurt you, you can never truly understand the joy of love."

She falls silent, and for a long moment, he doesn't do anything more than stare into his water. "So you're saying," he starts, and finds that his voice is hoarse with un-shed tears, "that I've never given Katara the chance to leave me? That because I can't let her go, I'm... I can't be in a relationship with her?"

"There's more to it than that," she replies gravely. "The obsessive love that drives you to hold onto her will smother her in time. I believe that is why she ran from the party last night."

"I was smothering her?" he asks, but it's not really a question. "What do I do? I love her - I love her so much it _hurts_. I can't just - "

"Yes, Aang," Ursa says, in the most comforting voice he's ever heard anyone use, "you can. And if you love her as you say, then you must. Which would you rather have: Katara, not with you, but happy and maintaining a friendship with you, or Katara, in your bed but loathing you and cursing your name under her breath?" The example is clearly from personal experience. In a much lower voice, she continues, "Which would you rather have, Aang? Her heart or her body?"

"Her heart," he whispers, voice small and meek. "I would - The last thing I want is for her to be unhappy."

"Then let her go. Maybe in time, she will find her way back to you."

"But it hurts," he whimpers, and Ursa reaches over and pulls him into a hug. He's startled - he doesn't remember ever being hugged like this before, by a mother. The tears start to well up in his eyes, and he burrows himself closer into her shoulder, memorizing this feeling, this moment. It's no wonder that losing Ursa wounded Zuko so deeply; he thinks that if he had been graced with her as his mother only to have her stolen away, he would have gone a bit mad, too. She smells like cinnamon and comfort and kindness, and he doesn't ever want to move.

"I know, _baobei_," she murmurs, "I know. I've been there, I know." She kisses the top of his head and pulls away slightly, and then looks him in the eyes. "And I _know_ you are strong enough."

He swallows hard. "Thank you," he whispers.

* * *

If he thought that the conversation with Ursa had been unappealing, the looming prospect of talking to Katara is downright _terrifying_. He thinks that he would give just about anything to erase the past day from memory, and go back to a world where he _knew_ that Katara loved him, and where he didn't have difficult conversations with Zuko's mother about spirits and love and choice.

She's sitting at the boudoir in her little rented room when he comes in - half a second before he realizes that he should have knocked and it's things like _this _that Ursa was talking about, the little choices like whether or not to let him into her room, that he wasn't giving her. But it's too late to go back and re-do, so he simply takes a seat on the bed and watches her for a moment. She knows he's there, but focuses hard on brushing out her hair instead of speaking, which cements to him the reality of the situation.

It's over. It's really over. Sure, at the moment, she's still wearing his engagement necklace, but the rift between them that he had never noticed - possibly, he thinks, because she was striving _so hard _to bridge it - is glaring at him. All of the mistakes he's made, all of the ways he's taken her for granted, rise up behind his eyes.

He never meant this. He begs to all the spirits he's ever met, to all the past Avatars, to Yue and to Agni and to dead Monk Gyatso, that she might understand that.

"Katara," he says quietly, and she closes her eyes.

"I know," she replies, taking him off-guard. "It was a stupid mistake, all right? I - I'm sorry."

She's apologizing, he realizes, and it hits him like a physical blow. "You - It's okay."

"No, it isn't. I shouldn't have left the party. I just... I had to get out, and then June was there and she had alcohol, and I don't know, it... I'm sorry, Aang." She finally turns to him, eyes dry and face pale, still haggard from her first experience getting really and truly drunk. "I know you're disappointed in me - "

He's had enough. "That's not what I came in here about. I - You thought I was coming in here to tell you off?" She looks away, which tells him all he needs to know. "_No_, Katara, I... I'm the one who should be apologizing."

"What?" she asks, startled, and something within him cracks.

"You... We should have had this conversation years ago. Our relationship... I never asked you... Katara," he says, burying his face in his hands, and trying desperately to wish all of this away. Finally, he swallows hard. "Do you really want to marry me, or are you just scared of breaking my heart?"

There's a long, pregnant silence.

"I..." she chokes, and when he looks up again, she's not facing him, instead organizing her "girly accessories" (as Toph calls them) with a fervor that's startling. Her hair has fallen between them like a curtain, and his question is answered.

"Why didn't you _tell _me?" he whispers. "I - I can take it," he continues, though he thinks privately that he can't, "I'm a big boy, Katara. You shouldn't have said yes if you didn't mean it. Do you think I want that?"

"I thought..." she replies finally, as though it's painful, "I thought love would come. I really, really did." She turns to him, and her eyes are bright with tears. She removes the orange necklace he gave her only days ago and hands it back to him. He takes it mechanically. "I'm so sorry, Aang."

"You shouldn't apologize," he says, even though it hurts like _fire_, like his heart has been torn out of his chest and laid at his feet, even though he wants so badly to be able to blame her for all of this because that would make this _so much _easier. "It was my fault, too. I should have noticed that you weren't happy. I should have paid more attention. I shouldn't have - I shouldn't have just assumed that you were in love with me." _We should have had this conversation years ago_. It might have hurt less, then.

On the other hand, maybe not.

Emptiness follows his words. In a way, it's cathartic: he's no longer worried about why she's upset, or worried about giving her all of the _things _she might wish for. And the worst part is over, the truth hangs thick in the air between them. It will hit him, he supposes, later, when he's alone and has time to think about all the things he's lost, and he thinks that he'll probably cry and maybe get angry. It might not be a bad idea to get someone to train with him - someone like Toph, who'll fight first and ask questions later - until he's so exhausted he can't dwell on it any longer.

"I'm sorry, Katara," he whispers.

"Me too," she replies.

And then he leaves, and that's the end of it.

* * *

Zuko is cleaning the tables in preparation for the dinner rush when she stumbles down the steps and sinks into a chair. He glances at her, and then pointedly walks out of the room, making her feel ostracized and thoroughly reprehensible - until he returns a moment later with a pot of tea and two cups. He takes the seat across from her and pours them each a cup, leaning back in his chair with his clutched in his hands.

"How did it go?" he asks finally, in a low voice.

She sighs, "As well as I could hope. He wasn't angry or... I think someone talked to him about it before he came up to talk to me. Maybe June," she muses, "because he was repeating some of the things I was talking to her about last night."

"Nah," Zuko replies, waving a hand. "June's still across town. Must have been someone else. Did you talk it out with him?"

"Sort of," she whispers hoarsely, and hides her emotions behind her teacup. "We... aren't going to be getting married."

He hesitates before responding, "I don't want to say I'm happy about that, but it seems like it's for the best."

"It is," she agrees, nodding. "I just... I wish I loved him, you know?"

"Yeah," he says, "I know. I wish I loved Mai like I used to."

"Did it hurt when you... I mean," she winces, unsure how to vocalize her thoughts. Fortunately, Zuko seems to get it.

"It did. A lot." He runs a hand through his hair. "She... she saw it coming, and I think she understood, but it still hurt to..." he trails off, choosing instead to stare into his tea. It's not his best, but the point isn't really to be tasty, it's to distract them from the horribly awkward conversation they're having. Friends, he thinks, are almost more trouble than they're worth. On the other hand, he muses, imagining Katara having to go through this alone, he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I always heard that it hurt to have your heart broken," she says, with a mirthless laugh. "I never knew it would hurt to do the breaking."

"Yeah, I know," he replies lamely, wishing that he was good enough with words to make her stop feeling the way she is obviously feeling - like a terrible person, the scum of the earth, the muck on the bottom of someone's shoe - because he's been there, and he knows. Even if Aang swoops in right now and tells her that he's already forgiven her and that he'll never blame her and that she's a wonderful person, it won't matter at all. What would Uncle say in this situation? "I... I guess," he starts, rubbing the back of his head, "it just means you care, you know? If you didn't, you wouldn't... care."

He would like very much to be an Earthbender right now, so he could sink through the floor.

"I guess," she says, either too used to his in-eloquence or too down to care. He hopes sincerely for the former. "I wish I hadn't gotten drunk last night." He's about to say something like _well, some good did come of it, right?_ when she adds, "Because I'd really, really rather get drunk tonight instead."

"There's nothing that says you can't get stupidly plastered two nights in a row," he replies lightly. She glares at him, and the hint of a smile appears on her face, and relief hits him like a bucket of water - she'll be okay. For the first time in thirty-six hours, he actually believes that.

"Nothing except the memory of this morning, that is," she counters, wrinkling her nose. "And that's a really, really powerful deterrent."

"Well... The equinox is coming up, isn't it?" he asks, and she nods, confused. "If the Earth Kingdom is anything like the Fire Nation, they'll take any excuse they can get to party, and that's a pretty good one. I'm sure we can find a party. Or make one, if we have to."

She raises her eyebrows. "That's your plan? Go out and turn Ba Sing Se into a giant party because the equinox is next week?"

"And... because..." he flounders, "because you and Aang could both use some cheering up."

"Zuko, I don't even think that's possible at five o'clock in the afternoon in the middle of the week."

"Sure it is," he replies, shrugging, and stands up, picking up the tea tray and walking back into the kitchen. Katara follows him warily. "We just have to talk to the right people."

"And who might the right people be?"

"Sokka. And Teo. And Toph."

She laughs outright at this, and he relaxes at the sound - she's laughing again, that's good. "That might be the craziest idea you've ever had, Zuko."

"And yet, you're still following me."

Katara just smiles.


End file.
